Never Miss A House

A New Craftsman-Style House on Gull Lake in Minnesota

This lake-front house in Minnesota may have been built in 2002, but it was designed with traditional Craftsman style. Their attention to detail with the woodwork is amazing. You just don’t see a lot of new houses that look like this.

The house has about 4,000 square feet and 3 stories.

The agent with Edina Realty says:

An authentic Arts & Crafts jewel in which every elevation and every room is replete with period design & detail. Park-like grounds on premier shoreline on the west side of Gull Lake. This national award-winning home was designed by architect Paul Hirst of Oldham Hirst Design and painstakingly constructed in 2001 by Nor-Son; the premier builder of the Brainerd Lakes Area.”

“Every elevation and every room is replete with period design, details and fixtures such as columned porches, handcrafted oil-rubbed bronze chandeliers, quarter-sawn oak paneling and cabinets, and stained glass and tile art mosaics. Truly in a class of its own.”

I’ve always dreamed of having a lake house. If I did, I’d want a sunroom and lots of porches with views of the water like this house has.

Only steps to the water…

For more photos and information visit Edina Realty, which has it listed for $1.65 million. Thanks to Kim for telling me about it. If you love Craftsman-style houses, click here to see more!

P.S. Does Gull Lake make anyone else think of Gull Cottage or is it just me? 🙂

it’s a lovely home & they certainly captured the spirit of craftsman design. i agree with the previous poster that the house needs some color. i would have loved to see some beautiful, craftsman era wallpaper in some of the rooms.

great porch and fantastic siting of the house with that awesome lake view.

My son will love this! I am going to send him a link to it. He is a big fan of craftsman style, and the house has a masculine vibe to me. And of course, being on a lake makes it even more gorgeous! Thanks for featuring it, Julia.

I may be the only one who doesn’t like this house. I don’t think that the open floor plan meshes well with the craftsman style. There are too many “grids” visible from every view point–the muntins, the ceiling, the cabinets, the banisters and even some of the furniture. It looks busy. I don’t think divided light windows were meant for rooms with 9 windows in them. Any one of these elements on their own would be beautiful, but there is too much of it.

I love the size and the location of this house. I believe 4.000 sqft is the perfect size for a big family, but no one really needs more than that. Smaller homes can bring people together and this home has this “cozy”, warm feel.

I thought I was going to love this. I love wood & don’t like the new trend of painting everything that is wood. But, this is even too much wood for me. It’s so visually busy. It also looks uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem like a cozy lake house to me. The lake view is amazing though! Maybe the inside of the house looks better in person?

I have to agree with a coupe of the comments above – the floor plan seems unnatural somehow. And I never thought I’d say this, but the main floor is just too ‘woody’. Way too much single colored wood! You can scarcely tell where one peice ends and the other begins! But the lot and scenery are gorgeous.

It almost looks like too much wood/brown, but I’d like to see it in person to make my final judgment. I’ll bet the real beauty doesn’t come through in the photos. I am thinking all that wood must be stunning in person when you can see the variations in grain.

I love the outside and location, but like previous posters I think the inside is way too busy and monotone. The kitchen and dinning room had so many patterns going on it was almost dizzying. I usually love the craftsman style, this was too much of a good thing.

It is gorgeous, yet I agree with others who said there is to much wood. I’m no designer so I don’t know what you could do to offset that besides some different paint colors and more cozy furniture with different wood tones?

I don’t see myself curling up on those wood framed couches, that’s for sure!

Love the exterior architecture– very beautiful.
However, the interior I find very depressing. I think every room needs some wood, but there should be a better mix of materials. I absolutely love Craftsman style, but this seems a little bit like a show-off house, overdoing it because they have the bucks. Doesn’t work!

Ditto to everyone else’s comments. Way too much wood. The kitchen gave me a headache. The dining room too but perhaps a quick fix for that room is a table and chairs that don’t blend in with the woodwork.

I’m not even a fan of the exterior – the colors are, um, interesting. Perhaps they are historic craftsman colors and I am not in the know. Seems dark and foreboding to me. The location and setting sure are gorgeous though. I could sit on that porch and never move.

Ordinarily I adore craftsman houses, but this one looks like it was built to exact, rigid (read: old-school) specifications with NO personality! It looks cold and uncomfortable with too many hard lines. Not to mention, you need color to counter all of that wood!

Thumbs down. Too much wood, too square, too many hard surfaces, too many lines going in too many directions. You could say they took the Craftsman style and ran with it and didn’t stop. The last picture is lovely, though, the landing with the beautiful lake view.

OK…along comes me with my opinion. Usually, I don’t like A TON of wood, but this house is a BEAUTY…and it’s all aglow with the warmth and coziness of the WOOD. Yep, I said it! I LOVE the wood! Actually, I love everything about this house!!

Yikes! I absolutely love real period craftsman houses, but this is craftsman on steroids. Way over the top, with none of the subtlety of the originals. I agree about the open plan showing too much detail all at once. And what’s with that compass-y looking built-in next to the fireplace? Bizarre.

There is no getting around the fact that this house has incredible workmanship and detail. However…it is not my taste. Way to much wood for me. I love the back and the view is awesome, but that’s where the love affair stops for me. It’s a good thing we are all different, wouldn’t the world be a boring place if we all liked the same thing?

The woodwork in this house is magnificent. But it’s very “stiff”. Everything in the house looks sort of uncomfortable. More color and some different furniture choices would go a long way to softening up his house and making it look comfortable. It is really beautiful, though.

I agree that there is just too much wood in the same tone, the result is a really busy look in which the wood gets lost. I also deeply dislike that “dusty rose” in color in the bed room. But than you know what they say about taste & opinions!! haha.
What first struck me is how busy the windows are. There are just too many mullions in those windows – that has got to interfere with your views to that beautiful nature outside. Overall, I’d want more simplicity in the whole design. Excess is not always success. But that’s just one man’s opinion. Considering how chilly I am in Alabama today, there is no way I am moving that far north to start with!
Love this blog!!

The house is nicely tucked back into the lot which allows for that lovely long driveway. I love that they repeated the stone used on the house in the columns of the entry driveway and at the top of the steps to the water. What a beautiful site for a house!

Not one inch of this house I would niot take. Probably, for me, the only house you have posted that I loved in it’s entirity! I am a huge Franl Lloyd Wright fan, his style, his craftmanship, all! Good job Julia!!

Julia,
The house is in a stunning location and you can see they did not cut corners anywhere. But, like others have noted, they added a few too many details and made it less calm and more busy. I did not like the boxy column thing going on to the right of the first fireplace and on the stairs. It seems to have no other purpose than to say look here. I wish they had just a bit more wall space and used some of the Bradbury Craftsman wallpaper frieze papers just under the wooden molding at the ceilingline to add color and pattern. Some of the beamed ceilings could be less busy. Most craftsman houses have a more calm “set in the shade” feeling. The last photo was perfect. Great way to lead you to the water without upstaging it.
rick

I love craftsman style and you would think with wood it would be warm, but I find this house to be very cold, there is no warmth, no color, no feelings of “home.” Love the location though. Thanks for sharing and love your blog!

When I first saw FLLW’s houses in buildings, I really didn’t like them much. My thoughts echoed many of the comments about “cold” or “too much wood” or “too busy”. All of those were based on the flat images, distorted angles (required to take a picture of a small space). Then, I actually visited many of them. My thoughts about them completely changed. The images didn’t convey the same feelings as actually experiencing the space.

Having said that, the interior is far warmer than you might get from the pictures. The spaces are smaller than they look and there is more variation in colors that you’re getting in the images. The images look washed out, too.

Before you completely knock it be sure you experience it in person. You still don’t have to like it, but you’ll not like it from an informed perspective (you can also appreciate it, but not like it. For example I think it’s a great house, but it’s not for me. I prefer more modern).

PS: The lot is 30+ feet above the water. The image of “steps from the water” is deceiving.

I’m just getting around to this. Sometimes pictures don’t do a house justice no matter how good they may seem. I have to wonder about this home and how it would feel seeing it in person. It doesn’t look hard or uncomfortable to me–not with those comfy leather chairs by the fireplace. I could see myself sipping some spiked hot cocoa warming myself fireside. The setting is simply beautiful.

One thing is for certain and that is this house has incredible workmanship and detail and the woodwork is magnificent. They’ve obviously captured the spirit of craftsman design and the lake views are gorgeous. I love the beautiful stone work on the outside too and how it’s repeated not only in the columns of the entry driveway, but also along the steps to the water. It’s lovely how the house is tucked farther back into the lot–it seems to compliment the home’s setting even more. .

The inside seems more masculine and has more of a lodge feel to it, which isn’t a bad thing and maybe that is exactly what they were going for. I’ll bet it is warm and beautiful on the inside. Would be so nice to visit and see it in person. A girl can dream.